Florida bill would broaden 'stand your ground'

A Polk County legislator who once fired a warning shot to scare away burglars has introduced a bill in the Florida House that would expand the state's "stand your ground" law.

It would grant immunity to people who fire a warning shot and to those who pull a weapon, hoping the sight of it would frighten away an attacker. Both are currently illegal.

It also would grant immunity not just to people defending themselves but to those trying to protect others from attack.

Its sponsor is first-year Rep. Neil Combee, a Republican who represents much of Polk and a portion of Osceola Counties. It was co-authored, he said, by Florida Carry, a gun rights group.

Combee filed it Tuesday — the one-year anniversary of the death of Trayvon Martin, the unarmed 17-year-old who was killed in Sanford by Neighborhood Watch volunteer George Zimmerman.

Zimmerman is claiming immunity under Florida's "stand your ground" law, which protects people from criminal prosecution if they use deadly force because they had a reasonable fear of imminent death or great bodily injury. Zimmerman has said the teenager punched him, knocked him to the ground, climbed on top and hammered his head on a sidewalk.

The shooting has spurred a national debate about the Florida law and similar ones in two dozen other states and prompted a review by a state-wide task force, appointed by Gov. Rick Scott. Last week, that panel issued its final report, recommending no major changes.

Allie Braswell, president of the Central Florida Urban League, is a critic of Florida's "stand your ground" law and is "adamantly opposed" to Combee's bill.

"The 'stand your ground' laws have given us this climate of shoot first and ask questions later," he said Wednesday. "These are laws that lead to violence and the senseless taking of life."

Combee's bill, titled "Defense of Life, Home and Property," is one of several introduced in Tallahassee in recent months that would make changes to the law. One would repeal it.

Another, introduced by Sen. Christopher L. Smith, would prohibit anyone who initiates a violent confrontation from claiming immunity. It also would no longer bar police from arresting those who were standing theirground.

Sen. David Simmons, one of the bill's original authors in 2005, was a member of Scott's task force and introduced a bill two weeks ago that would tweak it, barring Neighborhood Watch volunteers from confronting suspects.

The 2005 law is a good one, said the Altamonte Springs Republican,but is misunderstood. He equivocated when asked if he would support Combee's bill.

"I agree with a person's right to defend themselves within the existing 'stand your ground' law," he said. "I do not agree with people being able to willy-nilly brandish firearms.

Combee said that on Jan. 19, 1986, he fired a warning shot after he caught three men burglarizing the home of an acquaintance in Polk City. He had blocked their vehicle with his, he said, and told them to return the things they were stealing.

He said his bill is designed to allow people attempting the thwart an attack to fire warning shots or brandish a weapon without facing criminal charges for those acts.

Marion Hammer, lobbyist for the National Rifle Association in Florida, said she was not sure whether the NRA would support Combee's bill but said it has worthwhile elements.

"It doesn't make sense that in the exercise of self-defense you'd have to kill somebody rather than just stopping them to have the law protect you," Hammer said. "Looking out for your neighbor or child or your spouse or your mother is certainly part of self-defense," she said.